Texas storm victims finding little shelter

Dahleen GlantonChicago Tribune

Published Sunday, September 21, 2008

BEAUMONT, Texas -- In its first major test in three years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has come under scrutiny for failing to develop a long-term housing plan for the more than 1 million evacuees from the Texas Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

Faced with criticism, FEMA has agreed to pay a month of hotel expenses for some evacuees from the hardest-hit areas. But in a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Thursday, local officials expressed concern that there was no longer-range plan for residents whose homes in devastated areas such as Galveston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange will be uninhabitable indefinitely.

"Housing is a big concern and our county judges and elected officials brought it up with Secretary Chertoff," said Officer Crystal Holmes, spokeswoman for Beaumont Emergency Operations. "We just don't have apartments here, and when you think of the thousands of homes actually obliterated, where are all those people going to live?"

With 32,000 people in shelters across the state and thousands more living in hotels and with relatives or friends, Texas officials said they are anticipating a housing strain on the area, which already has a shortage of apartments and other rental units. Meanwhile, the housing burden has fallen on state shelters, which were initially set up as an emergency resource and could now be forced to remain open longer.

According to Zachary Thompson, director of the Dallas County Department of Health and Human Resources, FEMA should have established programs with housing agencies across the state in advance of the storm or immediately afterward, so that apartments and Section 8 housing could be readily identified. Those are lessons that should have been learned from Hurricanes Rita and Katrina in 2005, he said.

"We have seen this movie before. It happened with Katrina," Thompson said. "When you evacuate the majority of residents from an impacted city, the game plan for the federal government should be to look at housing needs. People clearly can't go back to Galveston."

"The shelters were put in place to get people out of harm's way. The next step is up to FEMA. No city in America is set up to handle long-term shelters," he said.

Thompson said Dallas was consolidating 4,000 evacuees into one location at the Dallas Convention Center. In Fort Worth, officials said they would ask churches to open extended shelters, and in San Antonio, authorities struggled to find clothes for evacuees, some of whom had worn the same items for five days.

FEMA spokesman Marty Bahamonde said the agency is working with real estate agents in Houston and other parts of Texas and Louisiana to identify vacancies. He said the agency would pay rentals for up to 18 months.

"We try to find temporary housing and hope things will change down there so they can go back in 30 days," Bahamonde said.

He said FEMA is also looking for mobile homes in the area that can be rented, but the agency has abandoned the controversial travel trailer program, which provided housing for Katrina and Rita evacuees for months after the storms. FEMA was criticized for taking too long to get people into the trailers initially and for allowing people to stay in them after learning the units were a health risk.

Local officials have urged residents not to return to the flood-ravaged areas until basic services such as electricity, sewer and water are restored. Still, thousands of people have tried to return to Galveston and other areas, despite a shortage of food, water and ice needed for survival.

Economics is the main reason many residents do not evacuate, officials said, and one of the reasons they are eager to return. With gas prices hovering at $5 a gallon, eating out and hotel rooms at $150 a night or more, it could easily cost $1,000 for a family to evacuate.

Orange County Judge Carl Thibodeaux, who is responsible for managing the coastal county, said the federal government should pay for gasoline, food and housing costs when residents leave under mandatory evacuation orders.

"One issue is the enormous expense of evacuating. I had to tell people to leave for Gustav, and when the storm was over, there was nobody there to help them. They didn't qualify for any aid from the federal government because there was minimal damage," Thibodeaux said. "Ten days later, I had to ask them to leave again for Ike."

According to FEMA officials, when a city or state orders a mandatory evacuation, it does not mean the federal government will pay for it.

"We simply encourage people to evacuate for their own safety and sometimes there is a cost associated with that," Bahamonde said. "We understand that it is a hardship but we have seen too many times what happens when people don't evacuate. They die."

To qualify for hotel reimbursements, residents must prove their homes are uninhabitable, which does not include the loss of electricity. Most residents in Galveston, Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange would be included, but not Houston.

Officials said 4,000 people had checked into hotels under the program and another 107,000 have qualified for it. However, there aren't enough hotel rooms. Many hotels in the area are closed and others are booked through October with emergency workers and evacuees who got in early.